A Night to (Almost) Remember

Prequel to Lions, Tigers, and Padawans, Oh My!. A fundraising bar crawl? Only Jemmiah could arrange something like that.

Note: This is a group fic written mostly by Jemmiah, with a little help from (in order of posting): Sybelle, Jedi Kylenn, HealerLeona, Wampasmak, Lilith Demodae, LadyJedith, Krelo Rei'ch, Jedi_Daphne, and mouse2. The original thread can be found at theforce.net.

Disclaimer: Qui-gon Jinn, Obi-wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, Yoda, Depa Bilaba and the universe they live in belong to George Lucas. They are respectfully borrowed with no intent to profit thereby.


~~~~~~~


"Sir!"

Han Solo spun round at the words, never able to get used to being addressed at anything other than 'Solo'. Or 'Slick'. Or in Leia's case 'darling'�

Everywhere Han looked buildings seemed to be springing up from amidst the demolition work that had been done on some of the older buildings. Solo wasn't a sentimentalist but he liked old buildings. Places that had been lived in and had some history to them. That was why he loved the Falcon so much�but all he could see were repulsar cranes loading heavy slabs and bricks, churning out more soulless buildings. It rather typified Coruscant to him.

The only reason Leia had roped him into making this public appearance was that she couldn't find anyone else to do it.

"Can we have a quote General Solo?" one of the hacks had asked.

"You can have several, but they might be unprintable." He'd grinned lopsidedly.

He eyed the man who had hailed him with the customary distrust and wariness inbred in every Corellian. It never did to let your guard down too much, even on a relatively safe place like Coruscant. Come to think of it, Coruscant wasn't really all that safe either�

"Yeah?" Solo slid the tips of his fingers into his pockets and squared up to the young man. "Who's looking for me?"

"Erm�" the fair-haired youngster stammered, for a moment totally in awe of the fact he had come face to face with one of his idols. "I have a message from Mr. Antilles."

Han felt surprise. Even though he couldn't get used to the idea of being addressed as Sir or General or whatever he happened to be at the time it took a whole load of mental adjustment to hear Wedge being described as Mister Antilles.

"Well, what does he want?" Solo asked in a world-weary voice. "If he's looking for the money he won off me in that Sabacc game he's gonna have to wait. Not that the cheatin' mongrel deserves it."

"No sir, it wasn't anything to do with Sabacc." The man smiled earnestly, making Han want to hit him with a permacrete brick. "It's just that he knew you were visiting the reconstruction work going on in the area and he thought you might be able to do him a favor."

"What kind of favor. Tell him I'm skinned, he cleaned me out two nights ago." For which Leia had extracted her revenge by making him sleep on the couch, much to the astonishment of his young children.

"No, sir. I think you haven't quite understood what I'm trying to say."

"What are you trying to say?" Han was enjoying confusing the young man, who for a moment looked as if he had forgotten what the message was.

"Er�oh, yes. Could you go see him when you have a moment, sir? He said he'd found something that might be of interest to Commander Skywalker and seeing as how he knew you would be meeting with him this evening would it be possible for you�"

"How did he know? I never said anything?" Han's jaw clenched firmly.

"I don't know, sir."

"You're very helpful, aren't you?"

"He's Corellian, sir. They have a habit of finding out information that nobody else wants�you�too," the voice trailed off as the youngster realized his mistake.

"You ever thought of joining the diplomatic corps?" Solo sneered.

"What do you think of the regeneration project sir?" another of the journalists called out.

Han looked about him uncomfortably. "It's, er�very nice," he offered.

"Nice, sir? I'm not sure that's perhaps the correct terminology to use on an occasion like this," the fair-haired teen offered.

"You sound just like my wife's favorite droid," Solo complained, frying the young man with a very Corellian glare. "Oh, let's get out of here before they start asking me if I like the pattern of the brick work."

He backed away, hands raised in submission. "Sorry ladies, gents. Gotta go. Somethin' really important has just come up." He grabbed the young man by the shoulders. "Which cantina has Antilles hidden himself in?" he whispered crookedly.

"The Hell's Chance, sir."

"Where's that?"

"Well�"

"Oh, nevermind. I'm Corellian. I'll find it."

"Sir, what do you think about the brickwork?" one of the press called out.

Solo thought about it. It's�bricky." He shrugged, before walking briskly away.

*******

Wedge had been waiting for Han to make an appearance for some time now, infact well over an hour. It gave him plenty of time to wonder what had possessed him to pick this cantina of all of them to hide in. It was so gloomy and dark and stifling, with paintwork that looked like it hadn't been reapplied for thirty plus years. And the natives seemed to be only a few glasses of Fire Scorch away from murder�

//Bad call, Antilles. Very bad call//

"Hey!" Han swaggered up to the dark haired former Rogue hero. "Nice choice of cantina! This is my kinda place."

"You never did have any taste. Look at that old death trap you're still flying with."

"That's no way to speak about Chewie," Han growled.

"You know fine well I meant the Falcon."

"I preferred it when it was Chewie. Don't insult my ship, Antilles. I may have to set the Wookiee on you. And you won't like it when Chewie gets annoyed." Han sat down at the table across from Wedge, both hands on the table in plain site as a mark of trust in his companion. "Now what's all this business?"

Wedge sighed. "I found something that I thought Luke might want to see. One of the men dug out of the ground when they were doing some clearance work on what used to be the old Jedi precinct."

"The what?"

"Where the Temple used to stand," Wedge clarified.

"You said the J-word. You lose minus several zillion points."

"Your brother-in-law is a Jedi. Your wife is�"

"That's why she married me. To brings some balance and normality into her life." Solo smirked. "That and the fact I'm just too darned irresistible�"

"Leaving your ego aside," Wedge smiled, "We opened up the object. It contained several protective bags."

"Sounds thrilling. I'm sure Luke will be tickled to look at them�"

"�and inside the last one was this."

Wedge placed what appeared to be a very small holochip in the palm of Solo's hand, which Han studied for a few moments. "This is out of date." Solo mused. "About forty years, maybe. I'm sure we can find something to play it on. If it still works. You say you found it?"

"Buried in the gardens. Now why would anyone wish to do that, I ask myself?"

"Must be important." Solo chewed his bottom lip. "To go to all that trouble just to keep something like this out of the way."

"That's what I thought," Antilles agreed. "So, as I know Luke is dining with you tonight�"

"How do you know?" Han demanded.

"I called your place yesterday and got your droid." Grinned Wedge.

"Threepio," grimaced Han.

"He was very helpful."

"Was he."

"Although he was mildly surprised as to why you were sleeping on the couch instead of in your room�"

Han's eyes promised death. "I'm gonna stick his head in the food prep unit!" he scowled.

Wedge stood up to leave. "Careful with that chip. It's old and fragile."

"So am I but I manage somehow," Han winked.

"And look out for yourself," Wedge added.



"How do you mean?"

Antilles paused. "It's an odd thing." He replied, "because the three workmen who recovered it have all had something happen to them shortly afterwards. One of them fell down a hole that suddenly caved inwards. Another managed to disrupt an underground pipe that sprayed all manner of stuff into the air."

"I wondered what the smell was," Han grinned.

"And the third tripped over some of the rubble and broke both his wrists. We had to send him to get treated at the nearest hospital."

"What is this? You think you're under some kind of curse?" Han laughed. "Load of superstitious nonsense�" he stopped himself when he realized what he'd said.

"Scoff all you want, Solo," Wedge said indifferently. "I'm just telling it as it is."

"The curse of the Jedi Holochip. What next. You think old Ben Kenobi is going to come back and get you just for digging up some holochip in his backyard?" Han stood up also, draining Antilles' glass of Corellian Ale. "I'll be off then."

"Be careful�" Wedge warned.

"Or what? You gonna tell my mamma?"

"You don't have one."

"Stop splitting hairs." Han shook his head, palming the chip and slipping it safely into his pocket. "See you around, Wedge."

"Yeah, see you Solo."

He watched Han's retreating figure as he walked towards the door. "Hey, what about my money?" called Antilles. Surprisingly, Han seemed to have grown suddenly deaf�

"You've got money, have you?" a rather vicious looking Barrabel hissed through it's fork-like tongue. "Well, share and share alike." She held out a scaly, taloned hand.

"I don't have any money, ma'am," Wedge answered honestly.

"Then why shout about it?" she let the lower lid of her eyes close up momentarily over her pupils. "That either makes you a braggart or a liar. I say we search him."

"Yeah!" chorused an evil looking group of individuals, gathering round him from every side.

"Now, look�" Wedge began.

Somebody picked him up by the ankles and began to shake him. "Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannn!" he yelled.

*******

Solo walked for a bit, completely unused to this part of Coruscant. It was odd, he reflected, that he could walk down the roads unmolested. People were perhaps scared of his reputation. On one hand the kind of beings he had grown up with no longer trusted him because to their eyes he had 'sold out'. The elite in whose circles he now mixed didn't trust him because he'd been a smuggler.

So he was in a state of limbo. And he didn't much like it.

The holochip had really got Antilles freaked out, mused Han as he walked through what appeared to be a run down plaza of some kind, with a row of derelict fountains that gathered nothing but garbage. There were still shops lining the streets and still customers visiting the shops, but it was so run down now that Han was almost certain that this little pocket of civilization would be next for redevelopment.

//They'll probably knock down that nice little cantina// sighed Han.

Well, at least there were still children with parents to be seen out on the streets. He drew level with one little girl who had her hand shoved into a packet of sweets. She reminded him somewhat of his own little daughter, Jaina and as he was about to step past he gave the little girl a wink.

Suddenly, Solo found his feet slipping from underneath him�

*******

"An Aniseed Ball!" Han moaned as he lay in the hospital bed. "Have you ever heard of anything as ridiculous as that? Can't you just see the headlines: Death Star Hero breaks collar bone in Aniseed drama."

"I believe that the headlines being used were: Solo Balls-Up." Threepio replied conversationally.

"That does it, I'm outa here!" Han tried to stand up but only managed to sit a few inches further forward.

"Sir, the medics say you have a minor concussion as well as the fracture to your clavicle. It really would be advisable for you to stay where you are."

"I can't help it. I hate these places," Han grumbled. "And Corellians make lousy patients."

"Yes sir," Threepio agreed.

"If I can't get out of here, you are going to have to give this to Luke." Han held out the holochip to Threepio. "Don't drop it."

As Threepio left, Han suddenly began to feel that maybe Wedge had been right about that holochip after all�

*******

Luke had been dumbstruck when Threepio had turned up at his suite of rooms completely covered in soot. "Master Luke, please believe me when I say that it was a most unfortunate accident," he bemoaned.

"You set fire to a cantina bar."

"I thought I saw Master Antilles being, well, escorted as it were, into the cantina building," Threepio almost wailed. "When I followed into the doorway I accidentally jogged the elbow someone who was smoking a cigara, which set the floor on fire�I am sorry Master Luke."

"It's alright," Luke said quietly, although it probably wasn't. "Weren't you with Han this morning?" Luke frowned. "Where is he?"

"I'm afraid General Solo suffered an accident. Princess Leia has been informed."

"What sort of accident?"

"I believe he fell on some candy that a child had rolled under his feet but he is now in safely in hospital. Don't worry, Master Luke. General Solo appears to have a solid cranium."

Luke smiled. "That's one way of putting it. So you came back here by yourself? That's quite a journey."

"I consider the last ten years of my existence to be quite a journey, sir." Threepio tilted his head to one side. "The small matter of a transport trip is of little consequence. Oh, my! I nearly forgot!" Threepio opened up his jointed hand and Luke stood closer to examine the object that sat inside the droid's metal palm.

"A holochip." Luke picked it up by the edges. "Quite old, I'd say. Where did you get this?"

"Master Antilles asked General Solo to pass it into your care but when General Solo was injured he asked me to take charge of its safe delivery."

"Where did Wedge get it from?" Luke wondered.

"From the old Temple precinct," Threepio answered. "They've been working there recently as you will no doubt have heard, sir. Apparently, they found this buried inside what they think was the temple gardens�"

Luke held the chip up to his eye level, suddenly recognizing the impact that this little chip might hold. If he were to continue with his project to establish a new order of Jedi Knights this might just be the key to solving so many of his unanswered questions� There had been little to go on before now. One of these days he was going to have to go back to Tatooine and explore Ben Kenobi's old home�if it still existed.

"Threepio." Luke's voice became serious. "I don't want to be disturbed. I'm going to see if I can't get this thing to work."

And he knew just the droid to help him�

*******

Luke didn't believe what he'd just seen.

Several hours of the strangest, wildest, most incredible behavior he'd ever witnessed from any beings had just about taken his breath away. At times he didn't know whether to cringe with embarrassment or howl with laughter at the scenes on the chip. The quality of the picture after all these years was not the best but Luke could clearly make out the figures of not a few of the famous heroes he'd discovered during the course of his research into the Jedi Temple and its inhabitants.

The site of the mighty Mace Windu crawling on his hands and knees in order to play 'guess the legs' was a sight that would remain with him for the rest of his days. When the poor woman in the long dress had her clothing ripped from seem to seem, Luke had spent the next five-minute with his head in his hands.

Then he'd spotted Ben Kenobi - an extremely young Ben Kenobi - with his arms in two slings and a pretty girl on his lap�

That was somehow not the way he'd ever pictured him.

It was the Corellian girl whose idea the whole crawl had been, as far as Luke could gather. That would be about right. Of all the people he counted as a friend, Han was the only one who would ever come up with something like a charity cantina crawl. But try as he might, Luke couldn't see Leia ever going into a lingerie department and buying her husband something a bit, er�daring to wear.

Poor Obi-Wan!

If Luke had learned one thing from the whole enjoyable farce it was that Jedi were real people with real problems and real emotions. That much had been obvious, even before the drinking had kicked in with a vengeance. These were - had been - real people.

Luke decided to pay tribute to them somehow. He'd get Han to organize a crawl. Yes, that was it! And perhaps he ought to go check how Han was doing. If Leia hadn't already murdered him� Whilst he was out there he could take a look at the old area. See if any of the places from the holochip were left�

"Threepio?" Luke said as he asked Artoo to cease running the recording.

"Yes, Master Luke?"

"We're going to visit Han."

Well, that wasn't strictly true. Threepio was going to visit Han. Luke was going on a trip down memory lane. Ben Kenobi's memory lane.

*******

Luke had wandered around for some time, down the streets and round the alleys, trying to get a feel for the place that Ben Kenobi might once have called home. Luke was finding it hard to adjust to the image of the boyish figure in the holo. It had never really occurred to him to wonder what life might have been like for the old hermit. He'd always been a strange figure. A magical figure.

Or a crazy old wizard, as his Uncle Owen had once described him.

Determined to find out if any of the infamous landmarks were still around, Luke decided to try trusting his instincts and decided to turn right all of a sudden. He found himself in a rather dark and sleazy area that he really wasn't sure he wanted to be in. The sign on the building read: MADAM YING'S. Quite what instincts he was following he really didn't want to say�

Leaning against the dark, damp wall Luke pondered why the force would have taken him to this place.

//Unless it's having a joke at my expense// Skywalker thought irritably. //No, don't be silly. Whoever heard of the force having a sense of humor�//

The next thing Luke knew, he was lying on the ground in a muddy puddle of water. Next to him lay an illuminous letter A. // Probably struck me on the head// he thought dizzily.

He wondered if that holochip had been cursed by some unseen agent. And then from somewhere at the back of his head, Luke thought he heard laughter.

[ Ben? ] Luke wondered.

A little further away from him lay the letters M, Y, I, N, and G. Luke risked the pain in his head worsening by glancing up at the wall.

The sign said it all.

MAD.

And the laughter drifted over him again.



THE END!